Category Archives: News

Join us on Saturday, November 14th at I-Beam (Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn), for an evening of original music with the Anthony Smith Quintet. We’ll be playing compositions from the recently recorded studio album, “Play It Forward.”

Friends, I thought this day would never arrive. I just ordered a bunch of copies of my “long-awaited” tome, The Lizard Stays in the Cage, a project that has been ten years in the making. With the help of my lovely and supportive wife, Teena, I have started a publishing company called Next Reinvention, and Lizard is our first product! It comes in at 711 pages, and covers a wide range of colorful experiences dating back to my childhood in Northern California. It takes a great deal of patience and perseverance to bring a creative endeavor like this to fruition, and this is one of the themes I explore in the book: how can artistic and creative people find their way in the world? What are the challenges, what are the rewards? I believe wholeheartedly in this product, which I can guarantee you will find entertaining and thought-provoking. I hope you will support our cause and pick up a copy (or two!), if and when you are able to do so. Thanks to all the friends, family and colleagues who make an “appearance” in the book… it has been a colorful life thus far, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to pursue what I love doing for all these years: making music, writing, and doing anything that involves creativity and originality. I will frequently be posting new blog entries that relate to various passages or topics from the book, so keep your eyes peeled for new stuff! And remember… the lizard stays in the cage.

Welcome to my blog! I’m excited to say that I’m in the process of publishing The Lizard Stays in the Cage, a memoir of my twenty-five crazy years in the arts, specifically music, but it’s more than that; it’s a vast collection of stories and anecdotes, quotes, pop cultural observations, bits of advice to aspiring artists, just a tad of trash talking, a running chronicle of my time on the road, and an all-encompassing, sometimes self-deprecating, other times self-congratulatory recap of a colorful life as an artist. Should you decide to procure a copy, I promise the following: laughs, insights, scandalous behavior by a variety of individuals, victories, defeats, juicy name-dropping, lessons learned the hard way, more laughs, and a candid glimpse of a life in the arts. Lizard has been a long time in the making, as many of you know, so I sincerely hope you’ll read it and share your thoughts and observations. Also, I hope the book generates many future discussions about art, culture, and life itself.